French Neoclassism, British
Restoration, and early 18th
Century Theatre
Brief History Lesson - France
• From 1550-1620 much civil strife and wars
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– Not many professional companies, theatres were rented and
fees charged.
– Farces became popular
In 1625 Cardinal Richelieu comes to power and in 1635 he
establishes the French Academy - a prestigious literary
academy to maintain purity of the French culture, language, and
literature
In 1645 Giacamo Torelli is hired to redesign the court theaters.
After this, there were always at least 2 professional theatre
companies in Paris and often more.
With the decline of religious strife and the establishment of the
Academy educated men began to write plays.
Neoclassicism is still the determining factor of whether a play is
“good” or not.
Plays written in rhyming couplets (verse) most of the time.
French Playwrights
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• Pierre Corneille (1606-1684)
– Founder of French tragedy (although he wrote 6 comedies)
– Most famous play Le Cid (1637) was based on Spanish folklore.
The story revolves around the love 2 people have for one
another - 1 father insults the other and then in a subsequent dual
the father of the daughter is killed in a dual by the son of the
other. In the end the King allows the 2 to marry - with a wedding
date set for a year after the final scene.
– According to Neoclassical ideals this is NOT a good play:
Unities are observed (takes place in a single play) and there
is Unity of Action (no subplots) BUT while Unity of Time is
observed, Verisimilitude is stretched (too much happens in 24
hours), Decorum is violated (the heronine agrees to marry the
man who kills her father - something no respectable woman
of her class would do).
French Playwrights
• Jean Racine (1639-1699)
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– Tragic Dramatist and rival to Corneille
– Most famous play Phedre (1677) which not only
established him as a peer to Corneille, but established
him with the younger generation as the leading French
Dramatist
– Story line to Phedre : Elaborating on the aftermath of the
Trojan War, Andromaque shows Hector's widow,
Andromache, caught in the crosscurrents of passion.
Her captor, King Pyrrhus, forces a marriage with her,
abandoning his fiancee, Hermione, who then instigates
his assassination at the hands of her love-maddened
suitor, Oreste.
French Playwrights- Moliere
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• Real name: Jean Baptists Poquelin
(1622-1673), born to a rich family, he drops the family
social class to pursue a career on the stage (at age21)
• Marries actress Madeleine Bejart to create the
L’Illustre Theatre (later joined by her brother and
sister)
• Considered France’s leading comedic playwright
• Both an actor and playwright who headed his own
theatrical troupe by 1660
• Wrote most of the plays the troupe performed.
• Played in the court of Louis XIV
Moliere (continued)
• Influenced by commedia,Roman comedies, and early
French farce
• Less witty then English restoration - more farcical and
“slapstick-y”
• Clever verbal elegance and wit often overshadowed by
farcical business and visual gags (people came to see
bits)
• Most famous plays:
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School for Wives (1662)
The Miser (1668)
Tartuffe (1669)
Imaginary Invalid (1673) : Moliere (playing the lead)
dies a few hours after performing. Denied rites by the
church (he was an actor), the King interceeds and
grants him a Christian burial.
French Actors
• Highly oratorical/declamatory in style
• Actors probably supplied their own
contemporary costumes
• The careers of actors of either sex was
seen as morally wrong by the Chruch
and actors were excommunicated.
• Actors took stage names that often
described the typical roles they played
French Theaters
• Both public and private
• Often placed in existing structures (like tennis courts) that
were extremely narrow and the facilities for sets and scene
changes were non-existent
• Performances took place twice a week starting at 2 or 3pm.
Several works would be presented (a comic prologue, a
tragedy, a farce, and finally a song)
• Nobles might sit on the side of the stage during the
performance
• Spectators were notably vocal during performances
• The place directly in front of the stage (without seats called
the “parterre” was reserved for men, but being the cheapest
tickets was usually a mix of social groups. Elegant people
watched the show from the galleries. Princes, musketeers,
and royal pages were given free entry. “Honest” woman did
not go to the theater until after 1630.
Brief History Lesson - England
• Before 1642 - the royalty supported the theatre.
• In 1642 the Puritan Revolution happens - Charles I is
beheaded and Oliver Cromwell takes over the
country’s leadership.
• From 1642-1660 Theatre is outlawed as “immoral” (in
England only)
• Charles II (Charles I’s son) returns from exile in
France and is restored to the throne in 1660. He had
lived in the court of Louis XIV and helped bring the
styles of Italy and France to English Theatre.
• This type of theatre was designed primarily for the
aristocracy and as a blacklash to the Purtian “ideal.
First Actresses (in England)
• Considered novel and risque (especially in the
physical seduction scenes)
• In comedy - daringly suggestive comedy
scenes became especially common.
• In tragedy - She-tragedy - tragic plays that
focused on sufferings of an innocent and
virtuous woman.
• Breeches Roles - actresses appeared in male
clothes to play a witty heroine who is in hiding
or who wants the freedom usually afforded to
men.
Restoration Comedy of Manners
• Witty Dialog
• Sophisticated sexual behavior of a highly
artificial and aristocratic society
• “Virtue” comes from succeeding in catching a
lover or cuckolding a husband without getting
caught
• “Honor” comes from reputation, not integrity
• “Witty” - saying things in clever ways
• Use of names to show character personality
traits (example: Mrs. Malaprop from
“mal”=French for “ill” -- “ill appropriate”
English Playwrights of the
Restoration
• William Congreve (1670-1729) - The
Way of the World (1700)
• William Wycherly (1640-1715) - The
Country Wife (1675)
• George Etheridge (1637-1691) - She
Would If She Could
Plot Line of The Country Wife
• Horner's impotence trick provides the main plot and the
play's organizing principle. The upper-class town rake
Horner mounts a campaign for seducing as many
respectable ladies as possible, first spreading a false
rumour of his own impotence, in order to be allowed
where no complete man may go. The trick is a great
success and Horner has sex with many married ladies of
virtuous reputation, whose husbands are happy to leave
him alone with them. The Country Wife is driven by a
succession of near-discoveries of the truth about Horner's
sexual prowess (and thus the truth about the respectable
ladies), from which he extricates himself by quick thinking
and good luck. Horner never becomes a reformed
character, but keeps his secret to the end and is assumed
to go on merrily reaping the fruits of his planted
misinformation, past the last act and beyond.
18th Century - Sentimentalism
• Characterized by over-emphasis or
arousing sympathetic responses to
misfortune
• Begins in England 1690s to 1730s
• Viewpoint at this point: people are good,
their instincts let them retain goodness.
• Comedies pulled their characters from the
rising middle class.
• Conservative, sentimental, moralistic
English Comedy Playwright
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• Oliver Goldsmith (1731-1774) - wrote
“laughing comedies”
– Born in Ireland, son of a clergyman
– Perennially in debt and addicted to gambling
– Most famous play She Stoops to Conquer
(1773):Wealthy country man Mr. Hardcastle arranges for
his daughter Kate to meet Charles Marlow, the son of a
wealthy aristocrat, hoping the pair will marry.
Unfortunately Marlow is nervous around upper-class
women, yet the complete opposite around the lowerclass females. On his first acquaintance with Kate, the
latter realizes she will have to pretend to be common, to
make marital relations with the man possible. Thus Kate
stoops to conquer, by posing as a barmaid, hoping to
put Marlow at his ease so he falls for her in the process.
English Comedy Playwright
• Richard Sheridan (1751-1816)
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– Born in Dublin to a fairly wealthy
family - mom playwright and
novelist and dad a sometime
actor-manager and author
– Became a member of Parliament in 1780
– 2 Plays considered “most famous”
– The Rivals (1775)
– School for Scandal (1777)
English Playwrights - Serious
• Joseph Addison (1672-1719)
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– Father was Dean of Lichfield
– Educated at Oxford
– Most famous play Cato: The action of the
play involves the forces of Cato at Utica, awaiting the arrival
of Caesar just after Caesar's victory at Thapsus (46 B.C.).
The sons of Cato, Portius and Marcus, are both in love with
Lucia, the daughter of Lucius, a senatorial ally of Cato. Juba,
prince of Numidia, another fighting on Cato's side, loves
Cato's daughter Marcia. Meanwhile, Sempronius, another
senator, and Syphax, general of the Numidians, are
conspiring secretly against Cato. In the final act, Cato
commits suicide, leaving his supporters to make their peace
with the approaching Caesar—an easier task after Cato's
death, since he has been Caesar's most implacable foe
18th Century Staging
• 2 doors in the proscenium opening on to
the apron
• Most of the acting was done on the
apron
• Theatre seating increased
• Still gallries and boxes
• Stock sets were used, lit by candle-light
• Costumes were elaborate and
contemporary
18th Century Theatre (cont)
• “Lines of business” - actors would play 1 kind of
role and seldom stray from it
• Companies used “possession of parts” - an
agreement that when an actor joins a company
he “owns” a particular role
• “Playing for points” was very common: getting
applause and doing an encore after particular
speeches; as you can imagine, this wasn’t very
realistic
• The repertory system was commom: rotating a
large number of plays.